Thrill of the Chase

My son was maybe 5. He had just learned to ride a bike. Trying out his new legs, he pedaled faster and faster until I was a dot on his horizon. Going downhill, I couldn't scream loud enough for him to hear. My feet felt like lead. I could only watch as I prayed in my heart for his safety. I thought of the oncoming traffic and started running again. I heard him laughing and shrieking, the thrill of the chase. Still, anything could happen to him. My imagination drifted. I saw him kidnapped, then a car slamming into him, and last, I pictured a bike wreck with my son lying on the ground.

I stopped and caught my breath, panting. "He's so innocent," I thought, "and has no idea of the danger he's in."

My whole world gone in an instant.

Yet, he might have been thinking: "Yes! Dad's gone; I'm finally free!" One thing is for sure: he had the wild eyes of a puppy who found an open gate.

My son's thrills aren't as dangerous today, but they are still daring. On Sunday, he showed me a post he made on a public forum for an online college class. He called his teacher out, in an indirect and hypothetical comment, for not grading his long-past philosophy discussions. He argued that without current feedback, he wouldn't know how to improve his future assignments. He's not wrong. But calling someone of academic authority out on that professor's own thread? That's brave.

I'm not sure if consequences for his post have arrived. Yesterday, he received a 73 on his long-delayed first graded discussion. He showed me his screenshot. I looked it over and disagreed with the professor's filled-out rubric, especially his claim of my son's persistent grammatical errors in his entries; maybe a couple of stray commas at most.

Early this morning, my wife called me. She said the professor posted his attendance on his site and marked our son absent by mistake two weeks ago. I felt a new version of his joyride from five years old unfold. Only, he's moved past the physical dangers and is now looking at the monetary costs, the loss of his financial aid.

How could my son approach this error with his professor if he might have already gotten on his bad side? Our son had to go to work, so the conclusion would have to wait.

Before I could think about it anymore, my phone rang again; I answered.

"He found his dated notes from class," my wife explained.

Email. Copy attached. Send.

I could picture that same wild look in our son's eyes.